Veterans in Nashville complain about treatment

NASHVILLE – Veterans in Nashville are complaining about doctors abruptly canceling appointments, administrative staff ignoring them while they talk on cellphones and other problems with treatment at the city’s VA hospital.

The Tennessean reported that Juan Morales, director of the Tennessee Valley Healthcare System for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, heard complaints from veterans during a town hall meeting Monday in Nashville.

The meeting was the third of four briefings Morales scheduled with veterans in the wake of a congressional investigation about delays veterans faced nationwide trying to see doctors. He met with veterans in Chattanooga on Friday.

At the Nashville event, about 90 people filled a small room, holding up their hands and waiting for a chance to speak.

During the meeting, some veterans cried when talking about how they were treated.

Misty Hollars told how she could not get her father, Miles Hollars, transferred from a hospital in Franklin, Kentucky, to the VA hospital in Nashville. The family had to go to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, she said, asking whether the VA system would cover that hospital bill.

Roger Morris, of Clarksville, brought with him the names of the nurses he said put him into a “bloody bed,” neglected to put an identifying wristband on him and then got the identities of patients mixed up and brought them the wrong medications.

Morales apologized and promised to investigate, saying, “First of all, I’m sorry for the experience you had. If that’s what happened, that’s not acceptable.”

While established patients in Middle Tennessee had an average wait time of three days, according to a government audit, veterans needing to see a specialist didn’t get in the door for 71 days on average. Those were veterans primarily needing to see ophthalmologists, podiatrists and pain specialists.

The wait time for a new patient to see a specialist now averages 61 days, Morales said.

Morales faced similar questions, complaints and skepticism at the Chattanooga event.

One woman said she drove all the way to the VA hospital in Nashville just to find out her appointment had been canceled, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported. Then she received a notice of her appointment in the mail a week after the appointment was supposed to happen.

One man said the VA referred him to a hospital for care, and now he’s being sued for more than $100,000 in medical bills because the VA denied his claim.

Not all of the feedback was negative.

At the Nashville event, Jim Haggar said he had received “stellar expert care” recently at the Nashville VA hospital and had never seen “a cleaner hospital room in my life.”

“I just want to make sure the people who do a fantastic job are getting a little bit of notice as well,” he said.

But Haggar did suggest that the VA outsource hospitality training for its front-line staff, with the goal of making them as customer-centric as people who work at the Cleveland Clinic.

Morales said the Nashville hospital was adding staff after receiving federal approval to bring on an additional 323 personnel and build space for more examination rooms. He said the area’s expanding population had made it difficult to meet the growing demand for care.

Morales acknowledged that it might be difficult to fill some sub-specialty positions, such as pain physicians.

“It takes time to recruit,” he said. “We want to hire the right staff for our veterans.”